


Destiny's Taunt

by Ulqueleh (Ulquii)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Allura/Lance (Voltron), F/M, First Meetings, Lotor Week 2020, Minor Allura/Lotor (Voltron), Minor Lance/Lotor (Voltron), Multi, Past Lives, Pining Lotor (Voltron), Self-Reflection, There's no threesome, Threesome - F/M/M, all three, but - Freeform, i guess, lol, or something i dunno, they end up together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:21:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26171089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ulquii/pseuds/Ulqueleh
Summary: He didn’t understand —he was in a war before waking up. He was in a battle before waking up; a lost battle, but a battle still. He was about to die and yet here he was. Alive in what he could only identify as the world the humans lived on.
Relationships: Allura/Lance (Voltron), Allura/Lotor (Voltron)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18
Collections: Lotor Week 2020





	Destiny's Taunt

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be a better read, but it came out messy, sorry lol

Lotor should’ve had known of the side effects. He was not as careless as to try something without the whole information. And still he had done it. He had gone face first into the Quintessence Field in search for the power he needed to defeat Voltron.

But somehow, it became useless —the quintessence started to fill him to the brim, then it spilt and he was over-exposing. Lotor couldn’t risk pulling away from it, though, not when the battle was still in its climax and he could lose. He couldn’t lose. He shouldn’t. But he did when the power overwhelmed him, when the quintessence fill all his empty spaces and claimed for more, tearing him apart.

Nonetheless, all of the sudden, the energy cruising painfully through his limbs, rushing his blood and leaving him blind disappeared in a breath. His scream continued, though, and he found himself seating up from his lying position.

He lost his breath and the scream died down, a faint beeping just next to him not catching his attention at his tries of gulping air. Panic surged to him when the bright white against his eyes was different from the quintessence he had been absorbing just a minute ago, the pale colors and figures around him clearing up in his sight. He blinked around, not recognizing the place, and looking down to the white sheets and plastic string in the inside of his elbow had him confused to no end, especially when his skin, before a soft lavender, now showed him a brown dark skin.

He turned his hand over and over, the color only being paler in his palm.

“Oh, god.”

He looked to the side, to a flurry of white going to him just before he could move away.

“What…”

His sight blurred just when the face of what he can guess was a nurse —a _human_ nurse— leaned over him, careful hands making him lay down on the bed just when he lost consciousnes.

He woke up again a few days later, his mind still foggy but the lingering pain from the quintessence starting to recede. He had tried not to panic when the nurse entered his room again, a reassuring smile keeping him in place even when he wanted to flinch away from her care.

He didn’t understand —he was in a war before waking up. He was in a battle before waking up, a lost battle, but a battle still. He was about to die and yet here he was. Alive in what he could only identify as the world the humans lived on.

He hated to admit it, too, but every time he went to the bathroom and a man very similar to him stared at him through the reflection of the mirror made it too difficult to deny. The color purple of his skin, of his people, was gone, with it, his yellow sclera and pointy ears. Now he had a horrendous white around his dark blue irises, hideous round ears and a brown skin that reminded him of someone he had betrayed.

The only thing still his, after whatever that happened in the Quintessence Field that had brought him to Earth, was his silvery hair. Neglected and dull, but still his.

“Stress,” was what his doctor had told him when he was awake when she entered the room, “Your hair went white due to stress.’

And wasn’t that _fantastic_. Not because of his heritage or his blood line; just something as trivial as _stress_.

“What happened to me?” Lotor asked, and the doctor sighed, taking seat beside him to answer.

He tuned out most of it, though, most of the words unfamiliar. He understood that he had over-dosed in some substance in his lab, unprotected from the chemicals, and an explosion that should’ve killed him like it did with the rest of his team but weirdly spared his life.

“You’ve been here almost two years,” she said, eyes unwavering and steady on his, “Unresponsive. It was a miracle you woke up.”

‘Have I?’ he wanted to ask, the human world seeming so dull and boring he actually thought of it as the opposite of a dream, maybe the illusion before death.

He learnt in the next days about this whole life he was apparently part of before the explosion, about how he was heir of this huge decaying emporium in the tech industry after his father had died mysteriously and his mother had disappeared.

Lotor had scoffed, amused. This life wasn’t as different as his previous one.

—

A few days before his discharge from the hospital, there was a knock on the door. Lotor looked up from the newspaper he had been reading daily ever since he knew of his human life. He needed to gain knowledge from this world, one way or another, and the nurse had given him the opportunity in a thin gray paper that smelled like dust. It had been useful, somehow, but there were still so many things he didn’t understand.

“Excuse me.”

The voice made him freeze, cold rushing through his blood, and the dread of finding her face, of all faces he had hurt in the past, in his past life, was choking him.

Allura stood at the open door; bouquet of flowers accustomed to give to patients and loved ones in her hands, and Lotor inhaled in a need to be sure again that he was alive, that this was no dream or nightmare to wake up from.

“Oh,” she stopped before entering, her now short white hair bobbing with the movement, and her blue eyes stared at him for too long, no recognition flashing across them, “Oh, I’m so sorry, I must have mistaken the room.”

Lotor gaped, watching her look down to the piece of paper she had in her hand and look up to the number in Lotor’s door. It was like an out of body experience, watch her frown thoughtfully, her expression soft and pretty, so similar to the one she gave him every day they worked together, every day Lotor fell deeper in love with her.

But, as similar as she was to the one on his memory, on his past life, she was different, too; her altean marks up in her cheeks were gone, her hair was short to her shoulders and the dress she was wearing, fluttery and light, beautiful and making her look stunning, was a garment Lotor would’ve never imagine on her. Of course it meant a different life, since using a dress as a princess in a war wasn’t exactly useful.

Nonetheless, the blue eyes and pink speckles on them were as present as they ever were.

Hope hung from Lotor’s chest, maybe thinking this new life as a human was an opportunity to mend his wrong doings. Maybe he could reach for her and fall in love with her and make her happy as she deserved. Maybe he could say her name and tell her their meeting was bound to happen, for him to be with her.

“Allura.”

She looked up from the piece of paper, her eyes lost in him for a second Lotor felt the stars collapsing inside him before she turned to look over her shoulder, other voice having called for her at the same time Lotor had shyly pronounced her name.

He didn’t miss the way her face lightened up, making him breathless, and then she turned to him once again, smiling.

“I’m sorry I bothered you,” she apologized, reaching for the knob of his door, “Get well!”

The door clicked close, leaving him alone in his room, and the sounds of her steps were drowned by the constant noise in the hospital, like her sole presence was just a fading dream.

He should’ve run after her, but given his condition there was no way he could’ve reached her. Maybe he should’ve said her name louder, inhibited and shameless of the suffering he had caused on her in their past lives, but his shock was so paralyzing, he almost didn’t gather the courage to talk.

But maybe it was like it was meant to, destiny taunting him with what he could look, what he could dream of having, but not giving him the power to reach for it. Maybe it was a punishment, of the sins he committed thinking they were right.

—

He was discharged a couple weeks later. It was weird now being part of the world he used to look at from his hospital room, the window stained in droplets of dry rain and what he had learned was the fumes from the methods of transportation.

Humans were simple, careless. But they had managed to find a way of living he had yet to experience.

It was difficult for him to get used to everything around him, and more than not he found peace on arriving to an empty home, one of the only things that didn’t changed from his previous life. Still, though, being president —or CEO, as many people referred him— of a grand company in its last crumble of bread was complicated.

Lotor managed to learn from everything —there were still a million of stuff he didn’t quite understand, he had to admit— but his job came to him naturally, and in a couple of months he had soon picked the company from the ground it was being buried on and shoot it up to the best in the city.

It was then that his second encounter with Allura happened.

Now it was in the middle of the street, her hair was longer and flowing with the wind and her own step, and Lotor, as much as he had convinced himself that being happy wasn’t meant for him, couldn’t help but long after her.

He had reached for her shoulder before he could stop himself, and when the blue eyes with pink speckles looked up at him, he found himself totally out of words.

“Allura,” he murmured, almost prayed, and she blinked a couple of times, brow drawn together in confusion.

“Do we know each other?” she had asked, and Lotor felt the Earth shattering beneath him.

“I…”

She tilted her head when he didn’t continue, still staring at her.

He couldn’t do this. He shouldn’t have done this. He should have just let her live without the knowledge of his existence.

“Allura!”

Lotor snapped back to reality, turning to that other voice familiar to him, and seeing the Blue Paladin standing a few feet away from them, eyes narrowing at Lotor’s hand still in Allura’s shoulder, made rage burn inside him.

“Do you know him?” he had asked approaching her side, almost ready to push Lotor off of her if it was necessary, “Is he bothering you?”

“Lance,” she sighed, shaking her head, “I’m fine, don’t worry.”

But the Blue Paladin didn’t stop glaring, openly disgusted by Lotor’s presence, even when he stepped away, bottling up his anger to keep from causing more problems.

“I’m sorry, I must have mistaken you,” Lotor apologized, bitter and resigned, looking away, “I’ll leave you alone.”

It was better to get away now, rather than tangling his messed up life with them.

“Wait, please.”

Lotor stopped from turning away and leaving, the little light of hope in his chest sparking back to life even when he tried to put it out.

“Yes?” he said, glancing up at her, and Allura tilted her head again, recognition flashing in her eyes and igniting the fire inside him.

“Do you want to have lunch with us?” she asked, instead of wording the question formed in her gaze.

“What?” he asked at the same time Lance blurted it out, face in shock.

“But, Allura…” he pleaded, taking her hand and making her turn to him, “This is a date. Just the both of us…”

If Lotor was angry before with his interruption, now he outright wanted to kill him.

“I know, sweetie,” Allura gently murmured, smile soft and eyes bright, and Lotor felt even more miserable, “But I haven’t seen him in a while.”

That made Lotor pause, dread sinking to his skin to the thought of Allura remembering the terrible version of himself in his past life, remembering the pain he had caused and the betrayal he had done stupidly.

“So you know him?” Lance shot a glare at Lotor, and even when the Blue Paladin was nothing close to threatening, there was a fire in his eyes that made him shiver.

“Something like that,” Allura replied, turning to Lotor with the same soft smile she gave the man that she was apparently dating in this reality, “From the hospital, remember?”

Relief made him sigh, the built-up tension in his shoulders easing down.

“Yes,” he breathed, Allura’s smile getting wider.

“I’m glad to see you’re better,” she said, honest and earnest. Lotor felt his heart squeeze.

“Yes, thank you.”

Something in her eyes shifted briefly, just enough for him to catch, and he was pleased to see she was interested in him as much as he had shown he was on her.

“Lunch, then?” she asked, taking Lance’s hand and giving him a grin, and it seemed the Blue Paladin didn’t have say in it.

“Yeah, okay,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes but with a fondness Lotor felt affectionate to, “What’s your name, stranger?”

“Lotor,” he introduced himself, staring into his eyes, and a spark of something different from disgust made him smirk, “Nice to meet you.”

And maybe destiny wasn’t just about punishment and taunting, rather giving him opportunities he had never thought of before.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject) (including the [LLF Comment Builder](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/commentbuilder)), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates responses, including:
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * Constructive criticism
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> This author replies to comments.
> 
> If you don’t want a reply, for any reason (sometimes I feel shy when I’m reading and not up to starting a conversation, for example), feel free to sign your comment with “whisper” and I will appreciate it but not respond!
> 
> ~
> 
> Come and yell with me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ulqueleh)!


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